The Create Your Day Podcast

118. Why Asking for Help Feels Impossible for Women

• Jenn Cody | Productivity & Systems for Entrepreneurs • Season 1 • Episode 118

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When was the last time you asked for help, and actually let someone give it to you? Not the "can you give my kid a ride" kind. The real kind, where you had to admit you couldn't do something alone.

If you're a woman entrepreneur who's built something meaningful but finds yourself drowning in tasks that don't need you, this episode is going to feel like a conversation with a friend who gets it.

Jenn Cody dives into the real reasons asking for help feels impossible for so many women business owners, and spoiler alert, it's not about being a control freak. It's about identity, systems (or lack thereof), and the stories we've been telling ourselves since childhood about what it means to be capable.

Whether you're running a six-figure business or just starting out, this episode will help you understand why "I'll just do it myself" is costing you more than you realize—and what to do about it.


What You'll Learn in This Episode

The Competence Trap: How being praised for "handling it all" as a child becomes a prison as a business owner—and why the most successful entrepreneurs actually ask for help constantly

The Invisible Load Problem: Why delegation feels impossible when everything lives in your head (hint: you can't hand off chaos)

Control vs. Trust: What "they won't do it right" is really code for—and how to create the clarity that makes handoff actually possible

The Identity Piece: Why releasing the "person who holds it all together" role feels like losing yourself—even when it's the very thing holding you back

The Hidden Costs: How refusing help affects your relationships, your team's growth, your business value, and your nervous system (which, by the way, is contagious)

The 80% Rule: A simple reframe that makes letting go feel less terrifying—and why "good enough" done by someone else often beats perfect done by you


This Episode Is For You If...

You've caught yourself thinking "it's just faster if I do it" more times than you can count. You feel guilty asking for help even when you're drowning. You've built something successful but can't seem to step away from the day-to-day. You're exhausted but can't figure out how to change. You want to delegate but genuinely don't know where to start. You're a woman entrepreneur who's tired of being everyone's emergency contact.


Thanks for listening!

Connect With Me:

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📱 DM me on Instagram: @solutonsbyjenncody

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SPEAKER_00:

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Create Your Day podcast. My name is Jen Cody, and I am your host. Thank you so much for being here. Today we're talking about why it is just so hard for people to ask for help. And I don't want to say by people I mean women, although it does seem to be something that is becoming more and more of an issue for women in general. But asking for help sometimes feels impossible. And when we're not able to ask for the help that we need, what does that cost us in the long run? And it's not nothing because we're there's a tr always a trade-off. And I really want to explore this because we struggle, struggle, struggle. And like I said, in the background, there are these hidden costs. And how do we shift that pattern without abandoning ourselves and abandoning the standards that we have set for ourselves? Because I do think a lot of this lives there. It's that we're ex our expectations that we put on ourselves are just not realistic. Never mind that they're um not attainable. They're not even realistic to begin with. So let's reframe what all of this actually means. And I want to get started by asking you a question, and that is when was the last time that you asked for help? And not just asked for it, but actually let someone give it to you. So what we're not talking about here is, you know, can you pick up my kid from school? That kind of help is almost like that's helping our children, or, you know, it's it's just seen differently. I'm talking about real help, the kind where you had to actually admit that there was something you couldn't do, you couldn't accomplish, you couldn't finish by yourself. You needed help to get it across the finish line. And I can definitely relate to this personally because in my business, as my business has grown, anyone that knows me can say that over the past few years, they have said, they've have heard me say over and over again, I need help, I need help, I need help. And I'm not asking those people for help. It's when people ask me, oh, how's business? How are things going? My response has been, it's going great. I really need help. Like I've I've put this out there that I need help with my um company, but I haven't actually looked for the people to help with my company until recently. And it's kind of cost me things like sleeping at night, you know, never mind the amount of time that it's cost me because um I'm doing all the things, not so much anymore, which I'll get to in a second, but um, I was doing all the things and checking every box, crossing every T, dotting every I. It all fell on me. And I felt like that was necessary. Otherwise, it wasn't going to be done to my standards. It wasn't going to be done the way I needed it to be. Um, and like I said, it also was costing me things like sleep at night because A, either I can't fall asleep at night because I'm so wound up, I'm so hyped with everything that I've been doing all day, or B, the, you know, two, three o'clock in the morning wake up where you're like, how am I possibly going to get done everything that I need to get done tomorrow? So I'm already stressing over it. And then it's costing things like work that slips through the cracks. Because at the end of the day, I really am only one person and I'm only able to get done, you know, so much within the same 24 hours a day that everybody else has. So I eventually got to the point where it just wasn't sustainable. I needed to get things done, to get things across the finish line that this is kind of twofold, right? Because I needed help to do it. I also, there were things that just aren't my wheelhouse. They're not my specialty. And knowing that is one thing. Admitting it and allowing someone else to actually come in and help me do those things is something totally different. However, once this happened, and I can tell you, like I brought on marketing, I brought on graphic design, I brought on operations, things to help my clients get the better part of me, the better person, the better version of me, because I'm not in the weeds with all that other stuff. And people who helped me regain my sanity, my sleep, all of that stuff. So why is that so hard though to do? Like we just don't want to ask for help. And we, I think we were all kind of raised to prove, I shouldn't say prove because I don't think our parents were like beating it into us that we had to prove this, but I think we were brought up to believe that we could handle it all. And certainly is how I've brought up my own children to let them know you can do it, you can do it. And um, we get praised for being capable, we get praised for being independent, we get praised for being the ones who figure things out. And somewhere along that path, we kind of internalize the facts that if we need help, that must mean that we're not doing something that we should be doing. We're not good enough at the things that we're trying to do. And the wild part about this is that if you look at people who are super successful, who are like really their businesses are running like well-oiled machines, they have teams. They have teams of the right people in the right spot. There are coaches, there are advisors, there are team members and mentors, and all of the things are around them. And they have reframed this issue and they know that asking for this help, putting the right people in place is actually not a sign of weakness. It's actually strategy. So if you can for a moment now, like think about someone that you really admire in business, just hold their vision in your brain for a moment. And I want you to imagine, or you may know this already, but do you really think that they got where they where they are right now? You admire them for a reason, right? Do you think they got where they are alone? Of course they didn't. So why do we expect ourselves to be able to handle everything by ourselves? So we become this this roadblock, right? Because everything in our life, in our business, and it could be, this is for at home too. It could be, you know, your children's practices, meals, all those things. If every single thing is living in our head, um, the diff, the little quirks, right? Like think about um, let's relate this to home life for a moment. Anybody that's a mom out there, every time you had a babysitter, do you remember having to tell the babysitter all the things, right? Like, oh, this child likes to sleep with this stuffed animal, this one can't have nuts, this one, there's all these different things, right? That that full um spills over in business as well. We have relationships with clients who have quirks and who likes to meet at certain times and who likes things to be done a certain way, all of the processes that we do, every detail um lives inside of our brain. So it becomes, it feels impossible to delegate because it's faster to do it yourself, right? And we think that by saying it's faster to do it myself, um, means that we're not lazy, right? So, but what's actually happening is that you're lacking the systems that you need in order to hand off that work because you can't delegate chaos. If you tried to, you know, think about like go back to the babysitter that was coming over, when they would come to your house, like didn't you make sure that things were where they needed to be? Or if they weren't, you know, you you recognized that because you can't delegate chaos when your entire operation exists literally between your ears, asking for help feels like you're just asking someone to read your mind because otherwise your assumption is that they're not going to be able to do what you need to do. And this is not about pride. The resistance here is not about being too proud to ask for help. It's literally just not having an infrastructure that makes that help possible. So a lot of times what's going on underneath the surface, though, is we're scared. We're feeling um vulnerable, and we feel like, okay, if I let go, it's not going to be done right. And that is really code for I haven't created the clarity that I need for someone else to succeed in this role. So we start to second guess those processes, the things that we've created that do live within our the walls of our brains, because we we start to think like, oh, wait a minute, I don't can I teach this to someone? Can I share this with someone? Are they gonna think it's as great as I think it is? Um, so there's a vulnerability there, not just about lacking the clarity, but just in general about sharing all of those amazing ideas that are going on in your head. So the vulnerability is not in the asking, right? It's actually in admitting to that person that you're asking that you don't have everything figured out. And I actually just recently hired an operations um amazing, amazing person that I've had the pleasure of working with in the past. And it was a difficult conversation because part of me didn't know what I needed from her, didn't know um how to structure the help that I was going to be getting. And admitting that is vulnerable, especially for women, because we we put this pressure on ourselves that we want to look like we have it all together. We want to be effortlessly competent, right? We don't want to just be competent. We want it to be effortless. We just know all the things, know all the right things to do, to say. And asking for help feels like, oh, we're we're putting in this crack in the facade. Um, people are gonna be able to see in and realize that we don't have our shit all together. And for some of us, being the person that has your shit together is your whole identity, right? It's who you are. It's you're the reliable one, you're the capable one, you're the one that everyone else leans on when they have something going on. So if we're gonna release that, if we're putting ourselves out there and being like, uh, I actually don't have my shit together, then it feels like we're losing part of ourselves, even when holding ourselves together like that is actually what's holding us back. So I said at the top of the episode, when we act like this, when we do this, what are we losing? What is what's the cost? What is what's the sacrifice that's being put out there? And you know it already. It's the energy, the sleep, um, the confidence, the the time, right? Like the time that it's taking you to be all the things to all the people, um, and the work that piles up because we're doing tasks that don't need us. We're involved in the weeds in things that other people can take care of. And the strategic thinking that never gets to happen. We're we're literally paying with our own strategic thinking. We're like giving away all the opportunities to think strategically so that we can hold on to things that don't need us, which is really, oh my God, like it's terrible. So think about the other costs that are happening. So when things are missing from you, like your time, your energy, um, your creativity, everything is you're you're exhausted, you're stretched really thin. So you have less to give to the people that really do matter. So for a lot of us, this means that we're present, we're physically in the room, but we're not really there. We're we're listening to the people who are speaking to us, but we're actually thinking in our brains, like, what of what's that next thing that I have to get across the finish line? What's the next email I have to send? The next Slack message I have to answer? Like, where does all of that live when you're actually trying to be present with your loved ones and listen to what they have to say? And not just the loved ones that you have at home, because if you're like me and you have started to assemble people around you, you love them too. You want people, you want the right people in your business. So my team, oh my God, I love my team. I have a broken nail. I know you might not be watching this on YouTube, but if you do watch the YouTube, you'll see this nail is like driving me crazy. But anyway, um, I love my team and I want my team to feel that they are empowered. They have the opportunity to step up, they have the opportunity to grow in the role that they have within my company. So if I am holding on to everything, I'm robbing them of any chance, any opportunity for them to do more, for them to grow. I'm creating this dynamic that's like, um, well, I'm not gonna even let you try. So you might as well just, I just want to know you're there, right? But I'm not gonna actually let you do anything. And then when people don't take ownership and step up themselves, what do we think? We think, oh my God, like nobody's doing anything. Why isn't anybody doing what they're supposed to do? And it's most likely because of you, because of me, right? Because we are trying to um control all the things. So we're not giving people the empowerment that they need to be able to um take hold of all the opportunity that's in front of them to grow in your business, right? This is our teams we're talking about. And when you think about your business running with all of these other people running it, right? If that's the goal for you, a business that can do that is great because a business that can't do that, if you have a business and you can't step away without the business collapsing or not collapsing, um coming to a complete standstill. That's not an asset, that business. It's a job. You're just paying yourself to do a job. And honestly, it's a job with you're a terrible boss. Let's put it that way. You're a boss that is like driving your employees into the ground, you being the employee. You're not giving yourself time off. Um, you're not respecting your own boundaries, and you're expecting yourself to be available 24-7. Would you ever do that to someone else that worked for you? Of course not. You would want them to have this healthy workplace, you would want them to be happy on the job and want growth opportunities. Why don't we do that for ourselves? You know, so we're costing our business, we're costing our teams, we're costing our family and our loved ones. All of these things are simply because we don't want to ask for help. It's crazy, right? And something else that um really gets affected is that if you're constantly stressed and constantly running on fumes, your nervous system is just shot to shit, right? Like it is, it just can't, you can't hold everything together by sheer will without your energy affecting every single person around you. Your team's going to feel it, your family's going to feel it, your clients are going to feel it. It's just, it spills over really, really easily. And um, it doesn't feel good to anybody, least of all you. So something you can ask yourself is what does become possible when you try to stop doing it all? What opens up? If you just let someone else think about the the weight that you're carrying right now, right? The weight on your shoulders from whatever it is that you're trying to do. When you think about that weight, if you let someone help you carry it, what does that open up for you? What does that actually give you the opportunity to do? Where do you see like those cracks? We've spoken before about the cracks in the facade. If you make a crack in the facade, where do where can you harness that energy that comes through that crack, right? There are other things you could be doing with that energy. So let's go back to what I was saying about feeling like it's wrong for us to ask for help because we feel like we're admitting defeat. I was supposed to do something all on my own. I was supposed to be capable of doing this, and I wasn't. That's the message we're telling ourselves. Instead of telling ourselves that um we made a strategic decision about where our energy goes, we're acknowledging that our time has value, our attention has value, and we choose where to invest them. And we need to make those decisions really, really wisely. Because if you think about every hour that you spend on a you know$40 task is an hour that you're not spending on a$200 task, the strategic thinking, the relationship building, the stuff that only you can do in your business. Right? So if I'm hiring someone to help me, I'm not hiring them to go out and build the relationships. I need the time and the space and the bandwidth to do that. So I need them to help me with the other things. So ask yourself the 80% that you're doing, 80% of whatever you're doing, is there someone else that can do it as well as you? They don't have to do it perfectly, they don't have to do it exactly like you, but can they do it 80% as well as you would do it? Because I think that 80% done by someone else sometimes is more valuable than a hundred percent done by you. You know, like it does give you the capacity to focus on things that really matter. Perfection that costs you everything is really expensive. It's not perfection. Because are you left with anything that's perfect? Of course not. You're left with like chaos and you're left with things to clean up. And if you have a team, what are you showing them about how to work? That struggling alone is a strength. No, thank you. Burning out is the pro the price that you're gonna pay over and over and over and over again? Like, no, it's not what I want to share with people, it's not what I want to inspire in my team in any way, and especially I think about my kids, right? I don't want my kids to think um about like what does it mean to be capable? What does it mean to be capable? Does that mean that you have to do everything just because you're capable of doing it? Is that how you earn respect? Is that how you earn whatever rest? I mean, we've that's a whole other episode, right? About earning our rest. Doesn't mean we don't have to do everything that we are capable of. Sometimes we want to manage. The time that we're using and do things a different way. And sometimes that's the most powerful thing that we can do is to actually model a different way for people like our children, people like our team. Show the people around us that asking for help is a sign of strength. It's not the opposite of strength. So what I want you to do today is you can't change this all at once, right? I'm not the last thing I want you to do is go like delegate everything in your life tomorrow morning. Um, that's not realistic. It's gonna create much more chaos than it's going to solve. But I would love for you to choose one thing this week that you've been holding on to that someone else can do 80% as well as you. They don't have to do it perfectly. They have to do it 80% of the way that you would do it. Right? And we're not talking about everything that's on your plate, just one thing. So maybe it's um teaching someone how you would respond to certain types of emails that you get or putting things in your schedule. What are things that need to be scheduled that you can teach someone how you like that done? Um, a report that you create every week that just needs to be created. It doesn't need a personal touch. It just needs you need access to it. Um, so write down what that thing is and then ask yourself what would it take for you to actually hand that off? What clarity around the process would you need to create? Here's the thing, right? You need to be able to teach this process to the person so that you can let go of it. And I don't want you to think you have to have this all figured out. You absolutely do not. Perfect systems are great and they make it super easy to ask for help, right? If I have this, I don't know, binder filled with all of my absolutely perfect processes, it's great to just hand that to someone and be like, here's my business. You can just run it now. You don't even need me. But sometimes we have to decide that our time, our energy, our sanity, those are worth protecting now before we have that perfect binder. So let's just start with one thing and create that process so that we can see what it alleviates from us, what it opens up time and space for. The biggest thing, the biggest takeaway that I want you to have about today is that I want you to think of building a business that can run without you involved in every single step. It's not just about systems. Those matter, the processes matter, but it is about who you are willing to become, right? Who before how, who before how. I always say this. I want you to be able to become someone who leads instead of someone who is um constantly reacting. I want you to be someone that trusts instead of controls. That's a big deal. If you can learn to trust the people around you, you don't feel like you have to control every little single thing that's going on. Someone who knows their value does not come from being indispensable. That's who I want you to be. Like, how do you become that person that knows, oh, I can go away for a week and everything's going to run without me here. And that doesn't mean I'm I'm not needed here, right? That's that just means that you've set everybody up for success, which is a beautiful, beautiful thing. So asking for help is one of the first steps in that transformation happening and you becoming that person. It's a small step, but it is a really powerful step. Every single time you let someone else carry that weight for you, you're proving to yourself that you can let someone else carry some of that weight for you. So think about it, you know, like your home, your work, all the aspects of your life, you're building something real every single day in all the areas of your life. And you're capable of much more than you give yourself credit for. That goes without saying. What you need to remember is that you're not meant to carry all of that by yourself. No one is. So this week, what I really want you to do is find that one thing. I want you to practice letting go of some of that control. Identify who's the person that can help you. Who is that person that you can see yourself trusting, that you can open up to and say, I don't have it all figured out. I'm not perfect at what I'm doing, but I know that I need some help in order to get closer to where I want to be. That's a great start to a beautiful working relationship. So this is not because you're weak, it's actually because you're smart and you're smart enough to know when something is not sustainable. And once you recognize that, it you have to be brave, right? It requires a little bit of bravery because you need to be brave enough to actually take that step and do something about it. So let me know how this works out for you. I would love to hear um how it goes when you are, you know, working towards letting someone in and helping you a little bit. I want to hear how you feel after you do that. So drop me a DM on Instagram. You can email me, jen at genkody.com. But these are the the things that I wish for you so that you have um you are sleeping better, your energy is better, you are ready to take on everything that you want to take on because you know that you have the support that you need behind you. So hope this was valuable information for you. I want you to take this information, go out there and create your day in the best way possible. Until next week, take care of yourself, take care of each other, and I will see you next time. Have a great day.